The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1887-04-28
SECRET SOCIETIES
The Subject of DR.. Talmage's Sermon
at the Tabernacle.

congregation to-day that, rs the Brooklyn
Tabernacle has been uncomfortnbly
crowded for n my years, the trustees have
purchased the adjoining ground, ON which
great church, prayer, and Sunday-school
room will be built, which on Sabbath can
be opened into the main auditorium, thus
giving room for at least l.0UO more hearers
at services. Six thousand people are
crowded into the present building, 4,65O OF
these in pews and about l,5J0 seated in
sisles and standing. The improvement
will add greatly to this capacity.
The subject of DR.. Talmage's sermon
'o-day was, "Whnt is the moral effect of
yree Masonry, odd Fellowship, Knis hts of
Labor, Greek Alphabet, and other So
cieties" The text was from Proverbs XIV
8: ~Discover not secret to another" Dr.
Talmage said:
1t appears that in Solomon's time as in
all subsequent p iods of the world, there
were people too much disposed to tell all
they knew. 1t was blab, blab, blab;
physicians revealing the cases of their
patients, lawyers exposing the private
affairs Of their clients, neighbors advertis-
ing the faults of the next-door resident;
pretended friends betraying condolences.
One-half of the trouble of every COM
munity comes from the fact that so many
people have not capacity to keep their
mouths shut. When | hear something dis
paraging of you 49, first duty is not to tell
you. But if tell you what somebody has
said against you, and then go out and tell
everybody else what | told you, and they
90 out and tell others what | told them
that l told you, and we all go out, some to
hunt up the originator OF the story and
others to hunt it down, we shall get the
whole community talking about what you
did do and what you did not do, and there
will be as many scalps taken as though
band OF Modocs had swept upon helpless
village. We have two ears but only one
tongue, a physiological suggestion that
we ought to hear good deal more than
we tell Let us join conspiracy that we
will tell each other all the good audnothing
of the i'll, and then there will be no such
awful need OF sermons on Solomon's
words: Discover not a secret TO another"
Solomon had very large domestic circle.
In his earlier days he had very confused
notions about monogany and polygamy,
and his multitudinous associates in the
matrimonial state kept him too well in
formed as to what was going on in
Jerusalem. They gathered up all the
privacies of the city and poured them into
his ear, and his family became Sorosis
or female debating society of 700, dis
cussing day after day all the difficulties
between husbands and wives, between en-
ployers and employees, between rulers and
subjects, until solomon, in my text, de-
plores volubility about affairs that do not
belong to us and eXtols the virtue of secret
iveness.
By the power of a secret diVulged, fam
lilies, churches, neighborhoods, nations fly
apart. BY the power of q secret kept, great
charities, socialities, reformatory move
ments, and Christian enterprises may be
advanced. Men are gregariOus-catt in
herds, fish in schools, birds in tlOcks, men
In social circles. You may by the discharge
of gun scatter flock of quails or by the
plunge of the anchor send apart the deni-
zens of the sea, but they will gather them
selves together again. If you by some new
power could break the associations in which
men now stand, they would again adhere.
God meant it so. He has gathered all the
flowers and shrubs into associations.
You may plant one forget -me-not or
heart 's-ease alone, away off upon the hill
side, but it will soon hunt up some other
forget -me-not or hcarts-ease. Plants
love company. You will find them talking
to each other in the dew. A galaxy of
stars is only mutual life insurance COM
pany. You sometimes see man with no
out branchings of sympathy. His nature
is cold and hard, like ships mast ice
glazed, which the most agile sailor could
never climb. Others have thousand
roots and thousand branches. Innumer-
able tendrils climb their hearts and blossom
all the wayup, and the fowls of Heaven
sing in the branches. In consequence of
this tendency We find men coming together
in tribes, in communities, in churches, in
societies. Some gather to cultivate the
arts, some to plan for the welfare of the
State, some to discuss religious themes,
some to kindle their mirth, some to advance
their craft So every active community is
divided in associations Of artists, of met
chants, of bookbinders, of carpenters, OF
masons, Of plasters, of shipwrights, of
plumbers. Do you cry against it? Then
you cry out against tendency divinely i'm
planted. Your TRADES would accomplish
no more than if you should preach to a
busy ant hill or beehive a long sermon
against secret societies. '
Here we find the Oft discussed question,
whether associations that do their work
with closed doors, admit their members by
passwords, and greet each other with
secret grip are right or wrong l answer
that it depends entirely on the nature of
the object for which they meet. Is it to
pass the hours in revelry, wassail, BIAS
phemy and obscene talk, or to plot trouble
10 the State, or to debauch the innocent,
then say, with an emphasis that no man
can mistake, No! But is the object the
defense of the rights Of any class against
oppression, the improvement OF the mind,
the enlargement of the heart, the advance
ment of art, the defence of the Govern
ment, the extiTpation of crime, or the kind
ling Of pure-hearted sociality, then l say,
with Just as much emphasis, Yes.
There is no need that We who plan for
the conquest of right over wrong should
publish to all the world our intentions.
The general of al army Eever sends to the
opposing troops information of the coming
attack. Shall we who have enlisted in the
cause of God and humanity, expose our
plan to the enemyp Mol We will in secret
plot the ruin of all tLo enterprises of Satan
and his cohorts. When they expect us by
day we will call upon them by night.
While they ore strengthening their left
wing we will double up their right. BY o
plan of battle formed in secret conclave
We will come suddenly upon them, crying:
@The sword Of the Lord and of Gideon"
Secrecy of plot and execution are wrong
only when the objects and ends are nefari-
ous. Every family is secret society,
every business firm and every banking ana
insurance institution. Those men who
have no capacity TO keep secret are unfit
for positions of trust anywhere. There
are thousands of men whose vital need is
culturing capacity to keep a secret. Men
talk too much and womel, too. There is
time to keep silence, as we'll as a time to
speak.
Although not belonging to any of the
great secret societies about which there has
been SO much violent discussion, l have
only words of praise for thoso associations